Under the pretext of “helping” local communities short of police in difficult economic times, as well as preparations for a potential swine flu pandemic, U.S. troops are now occupying America as the country sinks into a state of de facto martial law.

We have been inundated with reports over the last few weeks of uniformed soldiers and National Guardsmen running internal checkpoints all over the country as a frightening “Red Dawn” scenario unfolds not with a bang but with a whimper.

The military are now being called upon to undertake roles normally designated to police as Americans are incrementally acclimated to accept the presence of troops on the streets as an everyday occurrence.

The latest case occurred in Kingman Arizona, where National Guardsmen were filmed “providing security” and directing traffic.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Another similar example occurred in Newport Kentucky earlier this month when military checkpoints suddenly appeared downtown on September 6. Military Police from the U.S. Army National as well as Marines were purportedly conducting “traffic control” because the city was strapped for funds and did not have enough police to do the job.

The excuse that troops are stepping in to help because there is a lack of police doesn’t wash. Crime is down over the last 20 years, there are around three times more police and the state is not calling out the National Guard, they are being put on the streets as a result of the harmonization of police and military, a process that has been ongoing for decades, long before the economic recession hit. Troops also have guns and their primary function is to search people and vehicles, not direct traffic.

Members of the WeAreChange Ohio group interviewed some of the troops, who when asked if they would be prepared to “confiscate guns, shoot resisters in the back of the head, or throw people into ovens to incinerate bodies,” refused to categorically deny that they would follow such orders.

Watch the video below.

However, this was by no means the first time that troops have been used to fulfil roles normally ascribed to police in Kentucky.

During the Kentucky Derby on May 2 this year, Military Police were on patrol to deal with crowd control. An Associated Press photograph shows armed MP’s detaining a man who ran onto the track following the 135th Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs.

“The military has NO BUSINESS policing the citizens except during extraordinarily exceptional times of national emergency by an executive order. This is very disturbing and completely un-American. Maybe even more disturbing is that no one seems to care how quietly and easily we have accepted the burgeoning police state,” one respondent to the photo stated.

Over the course of the last couple of years, we have reported on numerous instances of military involvement with local law enforcement in violation of Posse Comitatus.

In January, soldiers from the Virginia National Guard. Soldiers from the Lynchburg-based 1st Battalion, 116th Brigade Combat Team, were used to conduct personal searches at checkpoints in Washington DC for the inauguration of Barack Obama.

Last December, we reported on the Marine Corps Air and Ground Combat Center dispatching troops to work with police on checkpoints in in San Bernardino County, California.

On April 22, we reported the deployment of 400 National Guard Combat Support Battalion troops to “maintain public order” at the Boston Marathon.

Last June, Infowars posted an article by D. H. Williams of the Daily Newscaster reporting the deployment of 2,300 Marines in the city of Indianapolis under the direction of FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

The presence of uniformed and armed military police at the Kentucky Derby and those seen recently at the Riverfest celebration is part of an ongoing campaign to acclimate the populace to the presence of soldiers at public events.

This has now rapidly accelerated with reports pouring in from our readers of military checkpoints being set up all over the country in preparation for the swine flu pandemic.

Last week we reported on the testimony of a military whistleblower who warned that law enforcement and military personnel are training to set up checkpoints in order to catch people who refuse to take the swine flu vaccination.

In a You Tube video, a woman describing herself as a soldier explains how she was part of a drill in California centered around setting up roadblocks and checkpoints so authorities could check who has received the swine flu vaccine. Those who have had the shots will be fitted with an RFID bracelet so they can be tracked. Those who have not taken the shot will be offered it there and then and if they still refuse, will be carted off to an internment camp, according to the woman.

As CNN reported back in July, the military will assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant swine flu outbreak in the U.S. this fall, stoking fears that the pandemic, which has claimed relatively few lives so far, will be used as an excuse to implement martial law and a mandatory vaccination program.

“The plan calls for military task forces to work in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. There is no final decision on how the military effort would be manned, but one source said it would likely include personnel from all branches of the military,” states the report.

Northcom has been preparing for mass flu pandemics for years and indeed, Gen. Victor Renuart spoke of the threat of a flu pandemic emerging out of Mexico just weeks before it actually happened.

Testifying back in March, Renuart said Northcom would provide “assistance in support of civil authorities” during an epidemic, adding “when requested and approved by the Secretary of Defense or directed by the President, federal military forces will contribute to federal support.” However, Renuart then added, “USNorthCom does not wait for that call to action.”

Northcom was only relatively recently assigned its own fighting unit – the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, which had been fighting in Iraq for five years before that. As we have previously reported, the Armed Forces Press Service has initiated a propaganda campaign designed to convince the American people that deploying the 3rd Infantry Division in the United States in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act is a good thing, with images of soldiers from the brigade helping in “humanitarian” rescue missions, such as car wrecks. This is all designed to condition Americans to accept troops on the streets and highways as a part of everyday life.

The assignment of the 1st Brigade Combat Team to Northcom alarmed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “This is a radical departure from separation of civilian law enforcement and military authority and could, quite possibly, represent a violation of law,” said Mike German, ACLU national security policy counsel.

The last time the the national guard and military worked with FEMA and local law enforcement on a large scale in the United States was during Hurricane Katrina, when they aided in the confiscation of privately owned firearms of citizens, even those who lived in the high and dry areas and were unaffected by the hurricane.

Another exercise that is training the U.S. military to take over law enforcement duties during a swine flu outbreak was revealed on Monday. According to Navy.mil, the Panamax 2009 drill, which is taking place in both Panama and San Antonio Texas, is designed to train soldiers to “stop people from going to work and school,” during a pandemic.

The Pentagon is also attempting to “grant the Secretary of Defense the authority to post almost 400,000 military personnel throughout the United States in times of emergency or a major disaster,” writes Matthew Rothschild for The Progressive.

“In June, the U.S. Northern Command distributed a “Congressional Fact Sheet” entitled “Legislative Proposal for Activation of Federal Reserve Forces for Disasters.” That proposal would amend current law, thereby “authorizing the Secretary of Defense to order any unit or member of the Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Navy Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve, to active duty for a major disaster or emergency.”

Collating all the evidence of how the military has been seamlessly ingrained into the daily lives of Americans by way of uniformed troops undertaking law enforcement duties, there can be no doubt that the U.S. is already under a condition of undeclared martial law. If a deadlier swine flu pandemic returns this fall, as authorities have vehemently promised will happen, military checkpoints that are now dotted around the country will rapidly multiply and America will fully begin to resemble conditions witnessed in the historical dictatorships of Maoist China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

Only by becoming aware of how far America has sunk into a militarized police state can we begin to reverse the incremental conditioning that has led Americans to accept the sight of troops on the streets demanding their papers.